Jailbreak

Cydia

Many of us got really excited when Orbit was first released. It allowed us to quickly get an Springboard Exposť-like look at our apps on each page. This was a first for the iPhone in Jailbreak Land and nothing new for many Mac OS X users. Being the only of it's kind, it was released to the Cydia Store at a price of $1.99.

Don't get me wrong, I love the work that Steven has put into his projects. I absolutely love Stacks and give kudos to his efforts. However, we have a contender now that looks to out perform Orbit.

On Friday, we saw the release of Overboard by Ryan Petrich (creator of Action Menu, Inspell, HapticPro, LiveClock, Rotation Inhibitor). Overboard is another Expose wannabe, but outperforms Orbit rather quickly. We also get support for Winterboard themes, full customization, and multiple ways to access it. For example this has become a rather handy replacement for my home button. In fact, I'm so impressed I don't know if I'll ever remove it. You can even create an icon on the springboard, or use the pinch gesture to activate it. The choice is yours.

Now here is the biggest kicker. For those of you on a 3GS you might not have noticed, but on the 3G, Orbit loads ridiculously slow the first time. Each page slowly appears one by one. Sometimes it would even get glitched out and not let me get back to my pages.

Overboard on the other hand has completely blown by Orbit in terms of speed. The incredibly fast load time is almost instantaneous on my 3G and when activated from the home button performs outstandingly (is that word?). Of course in terms of speed, this is on first load after a respring, as Orbit caches after it loads.

Some of you may not use Winterboard, which defeats a few of the perks that Overboard has. Orbit uses the Icon-Small.png as the mini icons, so those are easy to change without Winterboard, allowing for a better compatibility with those who prefer BossPaper over Winterboard.

However, that being said, Orbit seems to have lost support as Steven has a lot on his plate right now, so Overboard might be your best bet now.